Michigan Attorney General Files Criminal Charges Over Tainted Water in Flint

Michigan’s attorney general is filing criminal charges against three government employees involved in the water crisis in Flint.

The state alleges the workers tried to hide problems with the city’s contaminated water supply.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette is charging two state environmental officials and a Flint city official with felonies for allegedly misleading regulators about the amount of lead in Flint’s water and falsifying reports about the water quality.

The officials charged are Flint’s laboratory and water quality supervisor Mike Glasgow, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality’s Mike Prysby and a DEQ district coordinator for the Office of Drinking Water and Municipal Assistance, Stephen Busch.

Schuette alleges the criminal activity involved “intentionally tampering with evidence of lead levels on certain water samples in homes of residents of Flint.”

He would not say who, if anyone, ordered the officials to take the fraudulent actions.

But he does say more charges in connection with the water crisis will be coming soon.

For his part, Governor Rick Snyder says he finds the charges “troubling.” But when the Governor was asked if he feared he had done anything that could result in criminal charges, Snyder responded “I don’t believe so.”

Flint’s water became tainted with lead two years ago after the city began using a different water supply to save money without proper treatment.

WDET’s Quinn Klinefelter was at the news conference in Flint where the charges were announced and talked about it with WDET’s Jerome Vaughn.